Charles VI (Charles the Silly) was a king of France. He was born in 1368 at Paris and died in 1422. He was a son of Charles The Wise and succeeded to the throne at the age of twelve. His reign was plagued by fits on insanity and the country plagued by civil war between the Armagnacs and the Burgundians, making the country easy prey for the English under Henry V who crossed over to Normandy, took Harfleur by storm, won the famous victory of Agincourt, and compelled the crazy king to acknowledge him as his successor.
Charles VI was Emperor of Germany. He was born in 1685 and died in 1740. The second son of the Emperor Leopold I, he was destined by the rules of inheritance to succeed his relative Charles II on the throne of Spain, but Charles II by his will made the French Prince, the Duke of Anjour, his heir. This led to the War of the Spanish Succession in which England and Holland took the part of the Austrian claimant. He held Madrid for a while before conceding Spain to the French claim and content himself with the Spanish subject-lands, Milan, Mantua, Sardinia, and the Netherlands (sanctioned by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 and the Treaty of Rastadt in 1714). He became Emperor of Germany in 1711.
In a war against the Turks his armies, led by Eugene of Savoy, gained the decisive victories of Peterwardein and Belgrade. After the death of his only son, Charles directed all his policy and energies to secure the guarantee of the various powers to the Pragmatic Sanction, settling the succession to the Austrian dominions on his daughter Maria Theresa. In 1733 a war with France and Spain regarding the succession in Poland terminated unfavourably for him, he having to surrender Sicily, Naples, and part of Milan to Spain, and Lorraine to France. In 1737 he renewed the war with the Turks, this time unsuccessfully. Research Charles VI
George Czerny (real name George Petrovitch) was hospodar of Serbia. He was born about 1770 at the neighbourhood of Belgrade about 1770 and died in 1817 when he was beheaded by the Turks. His real name was George Petrovitch, but he was called Czerny or Kara George, i.e. Black George. In 1801 he organized an insurrection of his countrymen against the Turks, took Belgrade, and forced the Porte to recognize him as hospodar of Serbia. In 1813, however, he had to retire before a superior force, and took refuge in Austria. Returning to his country in 1817 he was taken and put to death. Research George Czerny
Prince Eugene of Savoy (Francois Eugene) was a French-born Austrian Imperial general. He was born in 1663 at Paris and died in 1736. He was the fifth son of EugeneMaurice, duke of Savoy-Carignan, and Olympia Mancini, a niece of Cardinal Mazarin. Offended with Louis XIV he deserted his native France and entered the Austrian service in 1683, serving his first campaign as a volunteer against the Turks. Here he distinguished himself so much that he received a regiment of dragoons. Later, at the sieges of Belgrade and Mayence, he increased his reputation, and on the outbreak of war between France and Austria he received the command of the imperial forces sent to Piedmont to act in conjunction with the troops of the Duke of Savoy. At the end of the war he was sent as commander-in-chief to Hungary, where he defeated the Turks at the battle of Zenta on September the 11th, 1697.
The Spanish war of succession brought Eugene again into the field. In Northern Italy he outmanoeuvered Catinat and Villeroi, defeating the latter at Cremona in 1702. In 1703 he commanded the imperial army in Germany, and in co-operation with Marlborough frustrated the plans of France and her allies. In the battle of Hochstadt or Blenheim, Eugene and Marlborough defeated the French and Bavarians under Marshal Tallard, on August the 13th, 1704. Next year Eugene, returning to Italy, forced the French to raise the siege of Turin, and in one month drove them out of Italy. During the following years he fought on the Rhine, took Lille, and, in conjunction with Marlborough, defeated the French at Oudenarde in 1708, and Malplaquet in 1709, where he himself was dangerously wounded.
After the recall of Marlborough, which Eugene opposed in person at London, without success, and the defection of England from the alliance against France, his farther progress was in a great measure checked. In the war with Turkey, in 1716, Eugene defeated two superior armies at Peterwaradin and Temesvar, and, in 1717, took Belgrade, after having gained a decisive victory over a third army that came to its relief. During fifteen years of peace which followed, Eugene served Austria as faithfully in the cabinet as he had done in the field. Research Prince Eugene
Solyman The Magnificent (Suleiman the Magnificent) was a Sultan of Turkey. He was born in 1495 and died in 1566. A son of Selim I, he inherited his father's ambitions and valour, and on ascending the throne in 1520, having crushed rebellions in Syria and Egypt, began a series of campaigns against the Western powers, taking Belgrade in 1521 and Rhodes in 1522. In 1526 he dealt a major defeat upon the Christian armies of Louis II and in 1532 advanced to within a few kilometres of Venice, but was beaten back by Charles V. Research Solyman The Magnificent
Stephen Stepanovitch was a Serbian soldier. He was born in 1855 at Kumodra, near Belgrade. He joined the Serbian army as a lieutenant in 1876 and saw action in the Serbo-Turkish wars of 1876 until 1878, and in the war against Bulgaria from 1885 until 1886. In 1861 he was a colonel and in 1906 he was made a general and for a while acted as minister of war. He took part in the Balkan Wars of 1912 until 1913 and was promoted to the rank of field-marshal shortly after the outbreak of the Great War, where upon he took part in the defeat of the Austrian invasions of 1914 to 1915. In 1918 he was one of the chief Serbian commanders involved in the offensive which resulted in the overthrow of Bulgaria. Research Stephen Stepanovitch
In Christian mythology, The Feast Of The Transfiguration (also known as the Feast of Tabor) is a commemoration held on August the 6th of the story of Christ appearing. Revealed in His divine glory as the Son of God, in the company of Moses and Elias (Elijah) before Peter, James and John at night on MountHermon or MountTabor. The Feast Of The Transfiguration was first observed in the east during the 8th century and is said to have been enjoined by Calixtus III in memory of the deliverance of Belgrade from the Turks. Research Feast Of The Transfiguration
In modern warfare, the term cannon is applied to a shell-firing gun of a heavier calibre than a machine gun. They have a lower rate of fire, but are more destructive than machine guns. Before the Great War, all big guns which we would now refer to as howitzers and anti-tank guns etc were called cannons, irrespective of whether they were muzzle or breech loaded.
In older warfare, the term cannon was applied to a big gun or piece of ordnance. The precise period at which engines for projecting missiles by mechanical force (catapults, etc) were supplanted by those utilizing explosive materials is a matter of controversy, the invention of cannon being attributed to the Chinese, from whom the Saracens may have acquired the knowledge. A doubtful authority asserts their use at the siege of Belgrade in 1073; but they were certainly brought into use in France as early as 1338. At first they were made of wood, well secured by iron hoops, the earliest shape being somewhat conical, with wide muzzles, and afterwards cylindrical. They were then made of iron bars firmly bound together with iron hoops like casks, Mons Meg at Edinburgh being a good example.
The first cannons used in Britain appeared around 1335. Edward III used cannons at the Battle of Cressy. In the reign of Elizabeth I, the British cannon was a muzzle-loading gun with an 8-inch bore that fired a 60 lb projectile. Bronze was used in the second half of the 14th century, towards the close of which and during the 15th century cast-iron ordnance came into use. A form of breech-loading cannon was introduced in the 16th century.
Cannon formerly received the following distinctive names: cannon royal, or carthoun, carrying 48 pounds; culverin, 18; demi-culverin, 9; falcon, 6; basilisk, 48; siren, 60; etc. They were afterwards named from the weight of the balls which they carried: 6-pounders, 12-pounders, etc; but by 1900 were often, especially the large ones, designated by their weight, as a 25-ton gun, a 67-ton gun, an 80-ton gun, etc. Their calibre or diameter of bore was also used in designating them: a 6-inch gun, a 12-inch gun, etc.
Around the 19th century the classification of cannons into muzzle-loading and breech-loading came into use though all the guns of the improved types of the 19th century were breech-loading. Quick-firing guns and machine-guns were classes of introduced late in the 19th century.
Great improvements and changes in the manufacture of cannon were introduced in the late 19th century. Not long before they were all made of iron, brass, or gun-metal (a variety of bronze) by casting. The introduction of rifled small-arms led the way to that of rifled cannon, and the adoption of heavy armour for ships of war rendered guns of enormous power and magnitude necessary in order to penetrate their sides. For round balls projectiles of considerable length were substituted in the rifled ordnance; and the increased weight and inertia of the projectiles and their rapid rotation in these rifled guns try the piece so severely that cast-iron and bronze were superseded, and the old methods of making guns given up. Guns built up in different ways are now in general use, and the construction and connected mechanism is now somewhat complicated, so that to turn out a large gun of modern type is a long and expensive process. In Englandsteel and wrought-iron guns came in for all heavy artillery by 1900, and they were manufactured for foreign powers on a large scale, especially by the Elswick Ordnance Company.
The former heavy guns of the British service, made on the 'Woolwich' system, had a steel tube to form the bore, over which were shrunk coils of wrought-iron, increasing in thickness about the breech, This method of manufacture was first introduced by Sir William Armstrong about 1858. Such guns present the hard steel to meet the wear and tear on the bore of the gun, while great support is given by shrinking on the wrought-iron hoops, which contract with a tight grip upon the steel. Hoops of steel were later preferred to those of wrought-iron; and later still the guns were strengthened by flat steel wire or a narrow ribbon of steel coiled round it.
Steel guns of very high quality were long made by Krupp of Essen, and Sir J. Whitworth's guns also gained a high name. The Whitworth guns were made of mild steel of a special quality, massive hoops being forced over a central tube, and over one another, by shrinkage or by hydraulic pressure. These guns had comparatively small hexagonal bores, with a very rapid twist, and fire long projectiles, made to fit mechanically, with remarkable accuracy to a great range.
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